Antonio Margarito Suspended by CSAC

“The California State Athletic Commission (CSAC) has temporarily suspended the licenses of Antonio Margarito and his chief corner man, Javier Capetillo. The temporary suspension will remain in effect until CSAC has fully investigated the circumstances surrounding events at the Staples Center in Los Angeles on January 24, 2009. A foreign substance was found by California State Athletic Commission staff in the hand wraps of Antonio Margarito before his bout against Shane Mosley at Staples Center in Los Angeles. The substance found in Margarito’s hand wraps is currently being analyzed by the California Department of Justice. An investigation as to whether either licensee violated CSAC rules is ongoing. Mr. Margarito and Mr. Capetillo have been asked to appear at an initial hearing scheduled for February 10, 2009.”

I saw the fight last week and thought Mosley did everything right to win the fight. However, one of the things that confuses me about boxing is the rules regarding clitching. I saw referrees take off points for excessive clinching by a fighter. This is a method used by some fighters to tied up a better fighter from cleaning his clock. Other times the referrees just let it go and the fighter that clinches a lot took advantage of it to neutral his opponent.

I thought Mosley took full advantage of his clinching in the inside to keep Margarito from getting his shots in and I think that was the real victory for Mosley, the fact that he was able to grab and clinch Margarito in the inside and used his quicker hands to deliver punches when he let go of his opponent. This, of course, allowed Mosley to hit without getting hit back.

I think that is the real flaw in boxing the fact that too many fighters are allowed to clinch and wrestle their opponents to death and not suffer any point deduction. To me, boxing is supposed to be about two guys punching each other and dodging their opponent by bobbing and weaving, not grab the hell out of your opponent so that you could neutralize his punching power.

That’s why I like MMA so much because in MMA if your opponent choose to fight dirty by grabbing you and pushing you around you are allowed to throw his ass to the ground and pound him out. I think if boxing change the rule to elliminate excessive holding and make fighters fight without using tactics borrowed from wrestling it would be much more entertaining, you would see many more knockouts, and the sport would gain a lager fan base.

To me, boxing has become too boring and frustrating when it allowed too many fighters to grab and push their opponents around. This excessive holding kill the action every time and gyp the audience from seeing an exciting knockout, which most fans like.

If you look back at the Muhammad Ali vs George Foreman fight. If the rule regarding excessive holding and pushing were in force we would have seen a different fighter raising his hand as champion. Ali didn’t win the fight because he was tougher or stronger than Foreman. He won it through employing numerous tactics that could be called dirty in boxing standards. He grabbed every time Foreman got close to him. Then he pushed Foreman to the ropes. And worst of all he kept pulling Foreman’s head down and laid his weight on Foreman’s head. Other times he just wrestled with Foreman to keep him from getting his hands loose. All these wretling, holding, and constant pulling of the head wore Foreman down and Ali was able to take advantage of the fruit of his labor and knock a tired Foreman out.

Some might say it is a strategy of a champion to do whatever it takes to win. But whatever happened to float like a butterfly and sting like a bee? To me, Ali looked more like a dirty fighter getting away with rough-housing to get an edge for a win. In the end he won that fight, but did he won it fair and square without the referree bending the rule to suit his shortcoming or tactic is another question all together.

However you feel about excessive holding in boxing, whether for or against, I still thinking it deters exciting fights and allows dirty fighters to win.

The fight ended with a spectacular KO. There was not a single moment in the fight that could be labeled boring. Sad attempt to take a swipe at a spectacular fight.

There wasn’t a single point in the fight where there was excessive holding by Mosley. Yes he fought Margarito clinched on the inside periodically, but he wasn’t holding excessively.

He crowded Margarito’s punches and was more physical with him on the inside. Anyone knows anything about Margarito already knows that his power lies on the “end” of his punches. Mosley knew that. He stayed in close in order to shorten the shots from Margarito.

If there was excessive holding, the referee Raul Caiz Sr. (one of the most experienced refs in boxing) would have promptly warned him then taken a point away if necessary.

Yes Mosley did tie him up, but it wasn’t the main factor for him winning the fight. Miguel Cotto did the opposite by trying to move out of the way after landing, but Margarito walked him down and ran over him like a bulldozer.

Mosley was tagging Margarito all night long to the body and to the head. If anything it was Mosley’s effective body work that softened Margarito up and won him the fight, not holding. What fight were you watching?

I ask the question again, what fight were you watching. Have you ever heard of the “rope a dope”? Muhammad Ali laid on the ropes the entire fight against Foreman and let him punch himself out. During that time, Ali was nailing Foreman with sick combos. Go check the fight out again, they run it on ESPN classic 100 times a week.

First of all, I didn’t say Mosley clinched Margarito excessively. You exaggerated that. Mosley did clinched Margarito quite a bit in the inside and prevented him from getting his hands lose so that he could deliver his own punches, but not grossly excessively like some other fighters that I’ve seen. I thought Mosley cleverly used the clinching game to his advantage without making people critisizing him too much because he always throw a barrage of punches after he clinched. He was able to do this because he obviously had quicker hands. He was able to throw a bunch of punches because of his quicker hands and when he saw Margarito came back with his own punches he quickly tied him up to prevent the fellow from getting any punches off. Like I said, he fought a clever fight and won it through the use of his clinching at the right moment and his superior hand speed. All people saw was the punches that Mosley got off that knocked Margito out, what they don’t notice, and properly because they don’t understand the intricacy of the game, is the subtle details that a fighter use to get an edge over his opponent. Hey, Mosley used what the ref allowed him to do and he won the fight partly as a result of it so more power to him.

Muhammed Ali, on the other hand, grabbed and pulled George Foreman’s head for just about the entire fight. If you think George Foreman punched himself out you must have been watching too many Rocky movies. The idea of a fighter delivering punches to his opponent’s face and body will fade out faster than his opponent who is absorbing the punches is ludicrous. Hyperthetically speaking, again just hyperthetically so don’t get to wound up, do you think if I were to punch you on the face and body and vice versa, you on me, do you think I am going to tired up before you are either going to get knocked out or my hands are going to fatiqued. Anybody that says the guy who is doing the hitting will tired out before the guy who is being hit never been in a fight before. If you were to punch your opponent in the face and body there is no way in the world you’re going to tired yourself out before your opponent’s face going to look like the Elephant Man and delared dead.

The truth of the matter is George Foreman spent more energy trying to get his hands loose from Ali’s grasp and wrestled with him than he did throwing punches at Ali. I wrestled in high school and I know how tiring wrestling is. It is one of the most tiring sport there is. Way more than a straight out boxing match without all the holding and pushing. Do you even know how hard it is to get your hands loose when somebody tied you up when a pair of large clumsy gloves are attached to your hands? That is where a lot of the energy is spent in boxing for a lot of fighters, not so much the act of throwing punches, but the act of trying to get loose from their opponent’s grasp or having to run them down.

When I wrote the previous article I was influenced not so much by the Mosley/Margarito fight, but more by the Adre Berto vs Luis Collazo fight. It’s just that that fight wasn’t on this site so I was forced to comment the subject on this site. In that fight, in my opinion, Berto would have been knocked out if it weren’t for his vice-like grip on Collazo in round 1 to four. The ref took off a point from Berto in Round 4 for excessive holding, but he was criticized by Lennox Lewis for it because Lennox wanted Berto to win. Berto was warned for excessive holding a couple of times after round 1 when he was knocked down by Collazo. Berto locked on his clinch ever since to keep from getting knocked out until round 4 when a point was deducted. I just wanted to show that that fight would have been an exciting fight ending in a knock out if the ref are allowed to take more points away for fighters who hold just to stay in a fight or to roughhouse their way through rounds. Excessive holding does keep fighters alive when they are about to get knocked out and it does helps some fighters to neutralize their opponent’s power and handspeed, and it definitley lessens our chances to see an exciting knockout. And in an ironic twist, Berto won that fight even though most people who saw the fight thought Collazo won it. Again, going to show how excessive holding can give a fighter who is on the verge of getting knocked out a chance to squeeze out a win.

The cliffnotes of your argument reads…”I was a fan of boxing but I like MMA now” You’re using the petty argument of excessive holding as a blanket statement to accuse most boxers of doing it.

That’s not fair.

Back to you Tex1. –Jared

It’s almost as if you’re watching these fights with a magnifying glass to find something wrong. Berto-Collazo was an awesome fight. Yes Berto was penalized for holding in he 4th, but from that point on the fight was a slugfest with little to no clinching.

It happens. Holding and clinching is part of the sport. If it irks you so bad, just don’t watch the fights anymore.